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Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

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Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#41

Post by Trasmatta »

Barrin92 wrote: post #20

>" Be sure to make your consequences clear and visible. When consequences are too subtle, players won’t see them. Bring back stuff from earlier in the game at the least expected time. Design for the visibility of consequences; investing in something not telegraphed well is mostly not worth it. Figure out how to the player visibly see what the consequences will be." Disagree with this and I think interestingly enough…

> and my first thought finding it was basically "am I the first person here?, do the developers know this exists?". A world having that much of a life of its own is a hug feat for a work of fiction.

My favorite example of this was Ash Lake in Dark Souls 1. In one of the most difficult and miserable places in the game there's a random tree with a chest in it. If you happen to hit the wall behind it, you'll find it's actually illusory, and be rewarded with another chest. At that point you probably think you've already found the secret, but if you move being the second chest, you'll find this wall is illusory as well.

You'll walk down a path and find that this tree is actually hollow, and proceeds into the ground for hundreds of feet. You can try to make it down, but it's quite the gauntlet: you have to deal with irritating platforming, and enemies that will curse you and remove half your health.

If you have the patience to make it all the way down, you emerge from the tree and are greeted with one of the most spectacular vistas in the game: a seemingly endless lake stretching to the horizon, filled with gigantic trees, each hundreds (if not thousands) of feet tall. If you then make the journey all the way down the beach, you'll encounter an amazingly bizarre (but peaceful) dragon.

All of this hidden at the bottom of a miserable swamp behind two unassuming illusory walls. It's so magic the first time you find this, and it reminded me of playing games as a kid, where the possibilities of what might be around the next corner felt endless.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#42

Post by Dalewyn »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #26
Dalewyn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized this rather spectacularly with MMORPGs. I've long been a fan of open world MMOs with basically next to no mandatory quests. Think Runescape, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory, etc. Loved them, and Ragnarok Online is to this day still among my top favorite games of all time. One day, Guild Wars 2 dropped to great hype and fanfare and I bought it to try it out. Good fucking god damn hell in a shit basket, I fuckin…

As someone who likes Guild Wars 2 the game makes the distinction between quests (i.e. the Story) and Events which are constantly occurring in the world. As you wander through zones in the world dynamic events will spawn for example you might run into a merchant in need of an escort between villages or you'll run across a farmer who needs you to defend his flock or whatever. Many events are simply on a timer and some…

The thing is I couldn't just go from zone to zone: I was inundated with quests everywhere I went. I couldn't ignore them, they were in my face every chance they got.

It's kind of like trying to use the internet today without an adblocker. Much like how the internet spams ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS in my face every chance they get, Guild Wars 2 spammed QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS in my face every chance it got. I couldn't stand it, I fucking hated it; I refuse to call Guild Wars 2 an open world.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#43

Post by jandrese »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #31
snozolli wrote: post #22

I thought the Cyberpunk story was pretty good, but the game mechanics pushed you toward the next quest in the main storyline all the time. This resulted in me burning through the main story quickly, then being presented with "touching" messages from all the characters during the credits. Except I barely knew who any of these characters were, since I'd hardly done any of the side missions where you get to know them. S…

Yeah, it's honestly an amazing ride assuming you ignore the main conceit that you're facing a ticking clock. If you take your time and experience all those side stories then you can feel an emotional connection, but if you listen to the plot the game REALLY wants you to rush through. You miss out on a ton of great characters and moments that way.

Mass Effect 3 had this same problem. The game starts off with the apocalypse beginning and there are constant reminders during the game how millions are being killed every day, but also loads you up with time consuming sidequests.

Subverted in the end by killing off everybody no matter how well you play.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#44

Post by 2bitencryption »

Barrin92 wrote: post #20

>" Be sure to make your consequences clear and visible. When consequences are too subtle, players won’t see them. Bring back stuff from earlier in the game at the least expected time. Design for the visibility of consequences; investing in something not telegraphed well is mostly not worth it. Figure out how to the player visibly see what the consequences will be." Disagree with this and I think interestingly enough…

I don't see the connection between the quote you cited, and your response?

The quote is about making consequences obvious. Elden Ring does this in spades. Hell, at one point in the game, a huge section of the map becomes a giant hole, and at another part, the massive tree that is visible throughout the game begins to burn, dropping ash across the whole world.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#45

Post by Trasmatta »

fauxpause_ wrote: post #24
Barrin92 wrote: post #20

>" Be sure to make your consequences clear and visible. When consequences are too subtle, players won’t see them. Bring back stuff from earlier in the game at the least expected time. Design for the visibility of consequences; investing in something not telegraphed well is mostly not worth it. Figure out how to the player visibly see what the consequences will be." Disagree with this and I think interestingly enough…

Yeah count me as someone who thought Elden Ring’s quests sucked hard. It’s only up to you to miss 80% of the game in the sense that you absolutely will miss 80% of the game unless you look it up on a wiki. And then when you do them it has basically no impact on anything. Like… you could have been able to do something really light touch like ask the merchants if they’ve heard any rumors on where characters are.

I think From needs to evolve their approach to quest design (it hasn't really changed since Demon's Souls), but it's also an intentional design choice that much of the content of their games is easily missable.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#46

Post by saratogacx »

Dalewyn wrote: post #10
uejfiweun wrote: post #2

To tell you the truth, playing these games taught me that I really don't care for quest-dependent games. I feel like CDPR games have no way to interact with their pretty worlds outside of the heavily scripted quests. You can generally just go anywhere you want, take anything, even loot the entire office of the captain of the army, and nobody even reacts. Contrast this to Bethesda games, where the entire game is an el…

I realized this rather spectacularly with MMORPGs. I've long been a fan of open world MMOs with basically next to no mandatory quests. Think Runescape, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory, etc. Loved them, and Ragnarok Online is to this day still among my top favorite games of all time. One day, Guild Wars 2 dropped to great hype and fanfare and I bought it to try it out. Good fucking god damn hell in a shit basket, I fuckin…

This is the first mention I've seen of RO in a long long time and I totally agree. There were a lot of small stories that you could take but you never felt like you were just going from point to point in some big directed path. If you didn't like an area you could skip it and never feel like you lost much.

I've yet to find a game that got me anywhere near the same sense of freedom and sense of being part of the world instead of one of a bunch of people going through the predetermined Disney ride.

The original planetside had a similar feeling with a more shooter lens on it where you were always part of a changing world.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#47

Post by csomar »

snozolli wrote: post #22

I thought the Cyberpunk story was pretty good, but the game mechanics pushed you toward the next quest in the main storyline all the time. This resulted in me burning through the main story quickly, then being presented with "touching" messages from all the characters during the credits. Except I barely knew who any of these characters were, since I'd hardly done any of the side missions where you get to know them. S…

I did the the first time I played and then I realized the mistake. If you pick the highest difficulty in the game, you won't be able to rush through the main storyline because your character is under-powered. You'd then need to play the side mission in order to accumulate gears and cybernetic stuff. That makes the game even more interesting. Try it again with the hardest mode.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#48

Post by blargey »

jltsiren wrote: post #32
blargey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I felt the opposite - consistent mismatches between the expectation and reality of Cyberpunk’s dialogue choices. A lot of optional dialogue was just cues to make the NPC roll their eyes and explain obvious “subtext” to the biggest dork in Night City, instead of a cue to play out two inhabitants of this world just naturally discussing and elaborating on a point of shared understanding. V’s lines in mandat…

I think it's more about Mike Pondsmith's vision than CDPR's vision. It's not the kind of setting where you tell stories about competent and successful characters. The main characters are supposed to be losers and misfits who often turn to crime because they don't have other options. They are good at some things and bad at others, and they have far more ambition than common sense. The expected outcome is a failure, an…

Perhaps. The setting and themes are certainly bleak. But the dialogue I’m thinking of feels more like complete lapses in common sense / social skills / street smarts one would expect even from a loser/misfit, given any of V’s background story options. I’d chalk some of it up to awkward exposition, but stuff like “background check” equivalents tend to feel stilted too.

The many gameplay and plot concessions made towards run-and-gun action and power fantasy cause 2077 to stray far from the “you’re not special” theme of “proper” cyberpunk stories, in general. Especially with the defeat of a certain character at the hands of V.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#49

Post by mecha_ghidorah »

fauxpause_ wrote: post #24
Barrin92 wrote: post #20

>" Be sure to make your consequences clear and visible. When consequences are too subtle, players won’t see them. Bring back stuff from earlier in the game at the least expected time. Design for the visibility of consequences; investing in something not telegraphed well is mostly not worth it. Figure out how to the player visibly see what the consequences will be." Disagree with this and I think interestingly enough…

Yeah count me as someone who thought Elden Ring’s quests sucked hard. It’s only up to you to miss 80% of the game in the sense that you absolutely will miss 80% of the game unless you look it up on a wiki. And then when you do them it has basically no impact on anything. Like… you could have been able to do something really light touch like ask the merchants if they’ve heard any rumors on where characters are.

> It’s only up to you to miss 80% of the game in the sense that you absolutely will miss 80% of the game unless you look it up on a wiki. And then when you do them it has basically no impact on anything.

....What? I mean you might miss the quest lines but this isn't Skyrim. The questlines are a teeny tiny portion of the content in a From Soft game. The quest lines are fun little bits of interactivity and current plot but the overwhelming majority of the game is just in exploring the areas, fighting the enemies, and finishing the game. You could miss all the sidequests in Elden Ring but still see almost all of the game if you were willing to just wander around looking at stuff

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#50

Post by sebazzz »

jandrese wrote: post #43
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's honestly an amazing ride assuming you ignore the main conceit that you're facing a ticking clock. If you take your time and experience all those side stories then you can feel an emotional connection, but if you listen to the plot the game REALLY wants you to rush through. You miss out on a ton of great characters and moments that way.

Mass Effect 3 had this same problem. The game starts off with the apocalypse beginning and there are constant reminders during the game how millions are being killed every day, but also loads you up with time consuming sidequests. Subverted in the end by killing off everybody no matter how well you play.

In the case of Mass Effect 3 you also remember from Mass Effect 2 how you got punished with dead crew members if you continued with side missions after they got abducted.
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